Status: 07/15/2021 4:32 p.m.
The Dutch crime reporter de Vries has died as a result of injuries sustained in an assassination attempt last week. The country reacts with sadness and horror.
From Ralf Lachmann,
ARD studio The Hague
The TV journalist and crime reporter Peter de Vries died of his serious injuries. He was the victim of an attack last week. He had been shot five times and one bullet hit him in the head. The drug mafia is said to be behind the attack.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte and many politicians, journalists and companions of the popular TV star expressed their condolences and condolences. The Dutch are shocked. In Amsterdam, many came back to the scene of the attack. “People really don’t know any limits to silencing someone. I’m shocked,” says one of them. “It has become a dirty city”, another. “This is really a low point,” adds one woman.
A fighter against crime
The 64-year-old de Vries had repeatedly campaigned for victims and their survivors in serious capital crimes in a militant and public way. For 17 years he hosted a wanted program on Dutch television. He fought against the drug mafia, most recently supervised a key witness in a trial against a suspected drug lord, whose lawyer and brother had already been shot.
De Vries’ family wrote that they would now have to deal with his death in silence. The public television NOS interrupted its regular program and showed a special broadcast on the death of the crime reporter.
Journalist Kees van Spek reported that he learned his trade from Peter de Vries, worked with him for years and was friends: “I learned everything from him. Peter was someone who has always stood up for truth and justice. And Of all people, that is what we shot dead. The Netherlands are no longer the same. ”
Immediately after the attack, the prime minister and the royal couple spoke of the fact that this attack was also an attack on the Dutch constitutional state.